SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The Global Lottery Management System (GLMS) has flagged 452 suspicious betting alerts to partners during Q3 2020, the majority of which (370) were generated by football.
Basketball followed some way behind football with a total of 24 alerts, tennis generated 34 alerts followed by 13 ice hockey alerts.
Of the total alerts, 298 were identified in Europe, followed by 71 in Asia, 38 in North America, 26 in South America, 10 in Africa and 6 in Oceania.
Meanwhile 400 of the alerts were created before the match started, while 10 alerts were based on in-play odds changes and 42 alerts were triggered after matches had ended.
A total of 35 alerts were classified as ‘red alerts’, which indicated a more serious offence. This includes suspicious odds changes, insider information being used for betting, rumours of match-fixing from a named source, or unusual volume or betting patterns on Betfair.
Meanwhile 89 were ‘yellow alerts’, which are associated with rumours of match-fixing on social media and a further 307 were categorised as ‘green alerts’ which were associated with team news and minor odds changes.
In a statement, GLMS President Ludovico Calvi said: “During these difficult and unprecedented times of the COVID 2019 pandemic, our Integrity hubs and General Secretariat have never been so busy. The degree of vulnerability to manipulation of sport competitions worldwide has increased in 2020 and the GLMS team has been advising on actions to be taken in its monthly reports, and has produced a record high number of alerts and detailed analysis reports.
“Additional threats are likely to continue to materialize while sport events resume in a usually quiet sporting period of the year, given that the financial crisis has adversely impacted countless sport organisations globally, which in turn, may increase the level of risk-taking and vulnerability of athletes and sport stakeholders.”
